Quarter of care leavers homeless by 18 in Wales

Up to a quarter of children leaving care are homeless by the time they're 18, a Senedd report says.

The Children, Young People and Education Committee says that fewer than one in five children in care will achieve five A*-C grades at GCSE.

It has set out a number of recommendations to radically reform the experience for children before, during and after they leave care.

The Welsh government said it wanted to make a wide range of changes.

That includes eliminating profit from care and reducing the numbers entering care.

• Alarm over mounting numbers of children in care

There has been a 35% increase in looked after children in Wales - from 5,410 in 2011 to 7,265 in 2021.

There was a 2.3% decrease (165 looked after children) between 2021 and 2022.

Rosie was raised by her grandparents

Rosie, 16, was raised by her grandparents as her parents had additional learning needs. 

She said it was "the best thing that could have happened" but was disappointed there was no support when things started to break down.

She shared her experience of being in kinship care with the committee. 

"I'd see my grandparents stressed all the time and it wasn't fair. They brought us up, we were always happy but when they were struggling nothing was done."

"It was a stressful environment, they did everything they could but it was too difficult," she said.

Rosie moved in with her aunt and uncle when she was 12. 

'It would have to get really bad'

She said that kinship carers, who are relatives or friends that look after children, should have the same support as other foster carers.

Rosie also said that a consistent social worker was important.

"Young people in care talk about it all the time. In our experience, you'd go to meet with your social worker and it would be someone different and you wouldn't know that was going to happen. They would never be there for very long," she said. 

"It would have to get really bad for social workers to get involved too. For example, when my placement with my Nana and Bampa was breaking down it had to be the point where we were moving out for something to happen and that's not fair."

The Children, Young People and Education Committee held an inquiry looking at the radical reform of services for children before they enter care, during their time in care and when they leave care. 

They've made 27 recommendations and 12 "radical reforms".

They include:

• Creating a law to place a duty on councils to calculate maximum safe caseloads for children's services social workers. In 2022, almost half of all children's services staff were agency workers 

• Giving care leavers priority in housing allocation and "priority need" status when homeless, up to the age of 25 

• Give statutory support to all care leavers up to the age of 25, as is currently the case for those in education or training 

• The statutory right to intensive, wrap around edge of care support for all care experienced birth parents to reduce the risk of children being removed from them 

• Mandate all foster carers to register with Social Care Wales

• Promote tertiary education to those in care 

Deborah Jones, chief executive of Voices from Care Cymru, said that changes were needed urgently.

"We've got young people who are living in hotels because there are no placements and no housing," she said.

"We've got over and above the number of care leavers in prison and they shouldn't be there - this needs to happen yesterday."

She also said the stigma of being in care needed to be "erased".

"The fact that young people have very poor outcomes is not acceptable in a modern country where we care for our young people," she said.

"If we care for them we have to do something about it - and that's improving outcomes."

Deborah Jones said the stigma of being in care needed to be "erased"

Committee chairwoman Jane Bryant said that anybody claiming the state is doing its corporate parenting job well should consider whether they would be happy for their own child to be cared for in that system. 

"We really hope the Welsh government takes this incredibly seriously and looks to implement our suggestions on radical reform because our inquiry has been led by young people," she said.

"It was incredibly hard to hear some of the experiences of young people, they were harrowing at times. They were incredibly brave to speak to us and to try to make things better for other young people - they don't want to see other people go through what they have."

A Welsh government spokesperson said: "We are working with care-experienced children and young people to radically reform services to provide the very best support and protection, and ensure they thrive when leaving care. 

"Our ambition is to deliver a wide range of changes, including eliminating profit from care and reducing the numbers entering the care system and keep families together.

"We recently announced a £10m package of support over the coming three years for social work students as part of our ongoing work to recruit more social workers.

"We are working with the sector to improve recruitment and retention of social workers including through the recently published social work workforce plan. We will consider the recommendations in the report."